they're losing at least $150 on that thing. these stores have historically thought that (1) they can sell you additional goods and services to make up for it and (2) that you will be so happy you bought this at such a great price that you will become a loyal customer and come see them again.

what the MBAs running these joints hopefully figure out sooner than later is that the people are buying it on price and price alone. they dont care who sells it, as long as its the cheapest price. and they don't want anything else with it. the loyalty is to price.

Sarcastic wrote:Yeah, BB has a nice showroom. There is a 20th AVE Electronics in Paramus NJ that I went to a few times last summer. Nice showroom with high-end stuff. I get what you're saying. It'll suck if the only place we can buy are walmart and costco. I don't know what BB can do to lower their prices, but it'd be nice if they did.

Its just a race to the bottom. And I don't blame you or anyone else - Sears longest HDMI cable was 12 feet and it was $60. Monoprice is one 10th of that.

But they can't do much to lower their prices. By and large, Amazon is usually not much less (if they are at all) than any big box on middle of the road tvs or bluray players like the Samsung ES6100 or the Panasonic ST50. Especially if you are going to use your Sears or Best Buy charge card.

I've written before how many many times these tvs are sold well below cost. Sometimes the manufacturers will kick back money because of a promotion. As a salesman, my hourly contribution was one of my most important metrics. Since we were losing money on the tv, to justify me being there I had to make sure you left with five years piece of mind (lulz), all the cables you need, a bluray player, a wall mount (installed by our pros of course), and enough 3D glasses for the entire family.

I remember one night in May 2011 that we were running a 10% off promotion. We had the last of our 2010 floor models on clearance. I sold around $4000 worth of merchandise that night, and I lost the store $3700.

Unless you are really able to capitalize on the high margin items (cables, stands, 3D glasses) and high margin services (extended warranty, installation, networking) you as a store will not be able to compete on price.

perhaps these specialized businesses should revamp their business models. its an obvious trend that people dont want to make umpteen different stops and would rather prefer a 1stop shopping experience that isnt ridiculously spread out like a mall setting.

There is a strange misconception that B&M is a dying breed. Its just an antiquated model that doesnt represent the wants of the population.

they're losing at least $150 on that thing. these stores have historically thought that (1) they can sell you additional goods and services to make up for it and (2) that you will be so happy you bought this at such a great price that you will become a loyal customer and come see them again.

what the MBAs running these joints hopefully figure out sooner than later is that the people are buying it on price and price alone. they dont care who sells it, as long as its the cheapest price. and they don't want anything else with it. the loyalty is to price.

Well that, and they want you to come in the door, so they advertise that. Then once you're in the door they hope that you brought $179 with you, and when they are out of that TV, you see a good deal on a bluray player that gets them a $10 profit compared to a $150 loss on the TV. they dont care HOW you spend the money, just that you spend it.

i think what walmart is doing is genious - not so much the "if youre here and we're out of it you get a raincheck" - but having various promotions at different times. i dont know how you do that logistically, but its a great idea to keep people in the store all day long.

i can tell you i was completely dead from 6:00am-till 10am-ish last year. around 10 the people who actually wanted to shop instead of buy doorsbusters were coming in.

Does that mean Amazon will have it available at that price also? Am I reading that page correctly? I'm not buying it, just posting in case one of you guys could use one. Unless I could find some use for an extra monitor. Trying to think.

pittsoccer33 wrote:i think what walmart is doing is genious - not so much the "if youre here and we're out of it you get a raincheck" - but having various promotions at different times. i dont know how you do that logistically, but its a great idea to keep people in the store all day long.

i can tell you i was completely dead from 6:00am-till 10am-ish last year. around 10 the people who actually wanted to shop instead of buy doorsbusters were coming in.

They keep the freight on pallets and bring them out at the said time for the larger items (mostly electronics)... the smaller items, just change price in the cash registers at said time. So technically, if you realllly want something, go grab it at 3am but dont check out til 6 am.

Also they're only doing the raincheck thing on the bluray player, $148 tv, and iPad2 w/ gift card.

just an FYI I made last year on how buying online from big box stores typically works:

Typically when you "order online" from a big box store website you are really just buying it from the local store. If the local brick and mortar supply chain does not have it, you can't order it. In most cases there is not a national distribution center that will fulfill online orders for things like appliances and large electronics. This can extend to smaller items as well like gadgets, mixers, coffee pots, etc. Very popular/harder to find items will almost definitely come from store inventory.

At Sears, for instance, they carry the Panasonic TC-P65GT30 plasma in their stores. They do NOT carry the Samsung PN64D8000 plasma, but their website sells both of them. You can order either off the website and it does not look any different to you.

Your Panasonic order will be fulfilled locally, either by a store delivering it to you or their local warehouse delivering it to you, just as if you had purchased it in store for home delivery.

If you buy the Samsung, however, that will come from a national website distribution center via a freight shipping company.

The website inventory lists and the store inventory lists do a terrible job of talking to each other. Last year we got crushed when our website kept filling orders for three days for a PS3 holiday bundle pack that the store sold out of in 10 minutes.